Control Room

Other Boys and Other Stories, Pieter, Los Angeles, 2010

The Vogarobots are androids developed through a fundraising initiative by replicant Golan 84 with the purpose of replacing clones as service providers. They function as personal assistants, industrial laborers and sex-workers. They are not conscious beings, but they are able to adopt attitudes.

GOLAN 84, a clone, and VOGAROBOT, a computer robot.

GOLAN 84
Login.

VOGAROBOT
Biometrics.

GOLAN 84
Commence face scan.

VOGAROBOT
One moment please. Thank you for waiting.

GOLAN 84
Commence retinal.

VOGAROBOT
Retinal complete.

GOLAN 84
Iris.

VOGAROBOT
Match.

GOLAN 84
Hand geometry.

VOGAROBOT
Hand geometry checks.

GOLAN 84
Finger print.

VOGAROBOT
Done.

GOLAN 84
Voice.

VOGAROBOT
Voice.

GOLAN 84
Vascular analysis.

VOGAROBOT
Vascular analysis confirms: Golan 84, latest model of 80 series. Welcome to email.

GOLAN 84
Inbox.

VOGAROBOT
606 new emails in 8 hours.

GOLAN 84
Anything from the Governor?

VOGAROBOT
Yes. Sender: Governor. Subject: Degradation of spirit.

GOLAN 84
Read.

VOGAROBOT / GOVERNOR
Golan 84, you know better than anyone my commitment to support for the Israeli space mission. When I met the first Golan, a man you are a fourth generation clone of, I vowed to him that we would see Jews in space before the end of our lifetimes. He – you – have died three times since then. And I am still here. And thanks to wise investments I made when first elected, you are still here again. Yet the israeli space station has stalled, in large part due to the unstable nature of California’s economic situation, which as we both know has a special relationship with Israel. It’s been one month since you left Sacramento for the Southland to tamp down on the separatist saboteurs whose profound criminality has thrown our banking system into turmoil. You have detained only teenagers with dissociative identity disorders, and while I applaud the spirit of your campaign to strike the fan base, what we need to see on the Holoscreens is dead seps. Body parts. Faceless corpses. The annihilated. We need night vision videos of little black pixels attacking each other. Your predecessors knew this. Golan 82 died making propaganda. His on-camera kidnap and torture did more for the state than any of the assassinations he successfully carried out, by stirring a swell of outrage and sacrifice in the voters, created a rippling tide that carried me to my third term. But now is not a time to show weakness and I am not asking you to die again, my love. I am asking for the easiest thing to grant: unleash your replicants. Show force. The markets must be assuaged so that we can free up the funds for the space plan.You will be the first to benefit: I will appoint you czar of the interstellar kibbutz you always dreamed of… Please don’t let me, or your previous generations, or the clones that may follow you if you fail, down. I love you, the Governor.

GOLAN 84
My Governor, we have been married all of my lifetimes, and I remember each one. I also remember my deaths – the accumulated traumas of which have caused me to look at the wholesale slaughter you are ordering differently than I could of – the brave poet and soldier just back from a tour of duty in Gaza – so many years ago. The subtext of your email frightens me much more than the content and I am wondering which advisor has your ear (Is it Gary?) up there in Sacramento in my absence, and what else of yours his mouth is breathing on. The separatist threat has been greatly weakened by the media crackdown my VOGAROBOT team instituted. Just now, a possibly viral music video promoting the outlaw boy band was detected and deleted before ever making it onto the web. Prevention should be enough to allay the fears of your backers for this venture. It is true that my original always dreamed of living among the stars. He was young and the young see only stars and assume they belong among them. Perhaps it is my status as a copy of a copy of a copy that grants me the special perspective in this case. Your advisors (Gary) have no doubt reminded you of the degradation principle of clone theory, calling on the disturbing sag of entropy as the explanation for my ideological mutation. It may be so. I have blurry vision in my right eye. My left hand shakes sometimes. I know something is wrong with me. But my powers of logic and deduction are unsurpassed in your administration, and I have a gift for creating a positive buzz. You could be the father of law, my love. Your population would give themselves to you freely. You have defeated death. I am proof of that. Think of it that way. XO G84. Send.

VOGAROBOT
Sent.

Golan 84 turns off the Vogarobot.

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